Will AKA RCS (Fredericton, NB): What was the old statistic published annually by Sport Magazine or Inside Sports? Total Average? Was that simply OPS?

Alan Schwarz: Inside Sports devoted many annual features to Total Average, a method developed by Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post. It wasn't OPS -- it basically divided all the bases a player gained by the outs he produced. A nice metric at the time (early-mid '80s). Believe it or not, the method was invented slightly earlier than Boswell by a fellow in Chicago, who called it Base-Out Percentage in around 1977. But he didn't get the play that Boswell did.